


open arms

by Rendition



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Episode: s07e01 Asylum of the Daleks, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-21
Updated: 2014-06-21
Packaged: 2018-02-05 14:19:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 810
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1821538
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rendition/pseuds/Rendition
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Doctor runs, Oswin follows.</p>
            </blockquote>





	open arms

**Author's Note:**

> Wrote this after seeing Asylum of the Daleks for the first time, discovered it while reviewing hard drive. As such, it ignores all that came after the first appearance of Oswin.

“Run,” she says, human and brilliant and all of the things he’d ever admired.

“Run.” He takes a step, two steps, three.

“Run.” He… stops.

The Doctor always runs best with companions.

 

\---

 

There is a look of horror on Amy’s face as he races on to the transporter pad followed by a Dalek.

“Doctor, look out!” she yells, pulling away from Rory – and there’s problem four fixed right there – to point behind him.

“No time to explain,” he yells, and then they’re away.

 

\--- 

 

“Doctor who? Doctor WHO?” 

The yelling echoes through the TARDIS as he enters with Amy and Rory, then closes the door behind him. 

“Oswin! You are officially my favourite person on this ship – not counting the ship itself, that is, sorry – you beat the Ponds though, and believe me that is quite an accomplishment.”

Silence greets him. Rory and Amy look confused.

“Oswin?” asks Amy gently. “You mean the girl from the _Alaska_?”

“Ah, yes. In a manner of speaking,” he says, because of course he still hasn’t had time to explain. Where has she gone to, anyway?

He looks around. She’s not on the main platform where he’d left her.

“Doctor,” says Rory, carefully, slowly, a little terrified, “we’ve got an extra passenger.” He points downwards, through the… well, it looks like glass, it’s not actually glass, of course, but that’s irrelevant.

“Oh, there she is.” The Doctor races down the stairs, taking the last ones two at a time. He grabs his goggles off an exposed tube and pulls them on, checking her over. A little part of him twitches at the idea of being this close to a Dalek, but he remembers soufflés and it goes away.

“Hello, Oswin.” 

He ignores Amy’s muffled ‘what’ and Rory’s ‘oh god’.

There’s a pause before she replies. “Hello.”

“You made them all forget me. Well done.”

Another, longer pause. A delay in the processing, maybe? “Thank... you.”

“You alright there, Oswin?” He peers closer, looking for damage. “Sounding a little slow. No offence, of course.”

“I... can… hear... myself. The other voice.” The _Dalek_ voice.

Ah. He can imagine it – the pain of speaking and hearing a voice that terrifies you. Enough to make anyone think twice about voicing their thoughts. 

“How’d you talk to me before then?”

“…Hacked… speakers.” He can almost sense her conserving word choice, trying to minimize the amount she has to say.

Ah. “Can’t do that now, can you?”

“Tried. Ship won’t let me.”

Double ah. The Doctor stands up tall, pulls his goggles back onto his forehead and addresses the TARDIS. “This is Oswin. She looks like a Dalek but believe me, she is very, very human. I know you don’t like letting other people in –” he thinks of House and his mouth twists “– but trust me when I say, she is good people.” He turns back to Oswin. “Go on, give it a try now. Say something.”

“Testing, testing, one, two…” She trails off, no need to finish. The voice is still Dalek.

The Doctor sighs, annoyed and disappointed. He runs a hand through his hair then points at Amy. “Phone! Give it.”

Amy shakes her head, raises her hands in an apologetic gesture. “I don’t have it on me.” 

The Dalek voice behind him says, “It’s alright, Doctor, I under… What the hell!”

He spins to face her once more. “What’s wrong?”

“There’s a door!”

“What?”

“In my… headspace. There’s a door. Not the main one, I mean, a new one. Just appeared out of nowhere.” Her words are faster, freer, in the excitement.

The Doctor glances up around him. “Go through it.”

“But I’ve never left the…”

He kneels back down, looks her straight in the mechanical-eye. “Trust me. Would this chin lie to you?”

“Okay.” She repeats it, louder. “Okay.”

For a moment, there is no noise. The Doctor crouches next to Oswin’s metal body and waits; Amy and Rory stand on the landing. 

“Doctor?” 

The voice comes from above him. It’s real and human and familiar. He’d heard it a whole planet of speaker systems.

He looks up.

Standing at the TARDIS door, as though she’d just stepped through it, is a human woman. Brown hair, red dress. A tool-kit around her waist.

He takes the stairs three at a time, races past Amy and Rory to stand in front of her. He doesn’t shake her hand – can already tell, from two feet away, that it would go right through her, that it’s a hologram – but he grins from ear to ear, tweaks his bowtie and says, in his most sincere voice:

“Good to see you, Oswin Oswald.”

She smiles back. When she speaks, her voice comes from nowhere and everywhere, but it matches the movement of her mouth perfectly. 

“Good to see you too, Doctor.”

"Now, I believe you said something about seeing the universe."


End file.
